Red Hat announced today its partnership with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as three students—Justin Lewis, Fran Rogers and Taylor Rose— from RIT (RIT student team) are using open source technology to help improve the lives of hearing impaired children in developing countries.

The RIT student team developed a proof of concept for Open Video Chat for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop. This student team created an XO-based open source prototype video chat package able to produce the quality of video required for smooth, signed communication previously unavailable on the XO. The Open Video Chat on XO has the potential to greatly impact children living in poor and developing countries with limited access to quality education and who are facing a physical handicap in an environment where the financial resources aren't available to purchase tools to assist with their disability.

Justin Lewis, Fran Rogers and Taylor Rose attended a Red Hat sponsored POSSE (Profesors' Open Source Summer Experience) workshop last summer. It was through this workshop where students polished their open source skills that enabled the the Open Video Chat project to emerge from a partnership between RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf's Center on Access Technology (NTID) and FOSS@RIT.

More information on this the Open Video Chat project and Red Hat's Partnership with RIT can be found in the press release.